s study was to determine whether an alternative fuel (such as methanol, methanol gasoline mix, or LNG) or two or more of such fuels substituted for crude oil based fuels on a widespread basis for transportation purposes will satisfy environmental air pollution concerns associated with the burning of fossil fuels for transportation purposes. A secondary purpose of this study was the assessment of the opportunities for profitable operation in such a transformed transportation energy environment by independent brokers currently specializing in crude oil based fuels.
Two major issues provide the background on the problem investigated. The first issue is the concern about environmental air pollution, while the second issue is the national energy supply problem in the United States that affects both the type of fuels used for transportation purposes and the operations of independent energy brokers. Each of these background issues is discussed.
Dirty air and dirty water prompted North American governments to consider legislation to prevent environmental pollution in the 1950s and 1960s. It was not simply that the air and water were polluted. It was because such pollution was being ever increasingly linked to serious human health problems (Pringle, 1980, p. 33).
The concerns over environmental health may be illustrated by the situation that existed in Massachusetts in the 1980s. Bronchus and lung cancer were major public health problems in the state (Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 1984, p. 10). Among males, lung cancer was the most prevalent form of cancer in the state, with over 20 percent of all cancers in men being in this group. The incidence of bronchus and lung cancer in Massachusetts was linked to environmental factors. One of these factors was sulfur dioxide in the air. Sulfur dioxide is a major air pollutant (Council on Environmental Quality, 1982, p. 80). Sulfur dioxide enters the air through the combus...